The Unexpected
by DefZeppelin
Summary: "You don't hang out with hot girls, okay? It's like death." If Stiles had only followed his own advice then, things wouldn't be so complicated now. Stiles/OC [a Re-Write]


_**Disclaimer:**_ _I in no way, shape or form,  
own any aspect of Teen Wolf. _

_**Destiny**_ _is a_ _ **bizarre**_ _thing._

 _It's_ _ **strange**_ _because it possesses the control to decide_ _ **everything**_ _that happens in our lives._

 _But, it_ _ **doesn't**_ _._

 _Well, not_ _ **all the time**_ _._

 _Sometimes, Destiny_ _ **sits idly by**_ _. Watching. Waiting._

 _And sometimes it works it's magic like a_ _ **phantom**_ _. Quietly. Behind closed doors. Under the tables. Away from prying eyes craning to catch glimpses of the_ _ **secrets**_ _. Away from people who try to have their own hand in_ _ **fate**_ _._

 _But, sometimes, destiny does it's work out in the_ _ **open**_ _. For everyone to see. Like a street_ _ **magician**_ _. So people can spectate._ _ **Watch**_ _._ _ **Listen**_ _._ _ **Study**_ _._

 _It's also strange because sometimes, you don't even know that destiny intervened until_ _ **after the fact**_ _._

 _When you look back and realize it was destiny that brought you to that_ _ **place**_ _. To that_ _ **restaurant**_ _. To that_ _ **table**_ _. To that_ _ **street**_ _._

 _When you realize that_ _ **nothing**_ _you could have done would have changed what the_ _ **outcome**_ _was._

 _But_ _ **sometimes**_ _. Destiny is just that._

 _Uncontrollable._

 _Unadulterated._

 _ **Unexpected.**_

* * *

 **The Unexpected**

 _Chapter One_

The copper morning sun made an unwelcome appearance as it scraped it's golden trail through a violet sky, shining rays of light onto the restless face of a sleeping blonde. Slowly, delicately, she cracked one eye open. A curse slipped past her tired lips with a groan as she threw aside her covers, the assaulting crisp air of her room waking her up more than any cup of coffee ever has. She sighed, resigned to the fact that another day of school as come upon her. And there was no way around this one. The first one of her sophomore year.

She swung her bare legs over the side of her twin bed, feeling her dense carpet scratch against her toes. The trip to the bathroom was a challenging one, considering all of the maneuvering she had to do in order to get there. Steve's things had seemed to multiply every day he was there. Box after box, it seemed, appeared in her room with no explanation. Just _**Steve's**_ written on it in thick, sloppy sharpie. She was sure to kick a particularly bothersome box in the hallway that blocked her from the bathroom. Something sounding akin to shattering glass resonated from it. It brought a grin to her face.

After a few minutes, the blonde emerged from the bathroom, her business done and her untamable locks tied up in a loose ponytail. Quickly, she swapped out her pyjamas for a pair of worn blue jeans and a tee with her high school's emblem printed on the front in maroon.

The night before, she had planned out everything she was going to do before she got on the bus for school. Things were going to be different this year, she tried telling herself. She was going to borrow some of her mother's make up and attempt to cover the purple half moons taking residency underneath her jade eyes. Then, she was going to use the straightener her mother left in the bathroom - the one that's created a permanent burn hole on the brim of the sink - and straighten the mop of curls that has overtaken her head. Maybe, if her mom hadn't woken up yet, she was going to raid her closet and find something nice, nicer than anything she has, to wear.

But, that was then, and this is now. And right now, doing things the way she has since 7th grade sounded fine with her. It's worked out okay, so far.

The blonde grabbed her bag off the floor and went out to the kitchen to toast some bread for her breakfast.

"Oh," a startled voice said, coming from the direction of her mother's room. "Cara, I thought you were Steve." She looked behind her, and standing in the doorway of the kitchen, was Cara's mother, Susan. The older woman ambled to the cabinet over the sink and pulled out a cereal bowl, the sound of generic Chex clanking off the plastic.

"Disappointed?" Cara mused, reaching into the fridge to get out the butter and grape jam for her toast. After grabbing the cold glass jar in her petite fingers, she shut the door with a slam, sighing. "We're out of butter."

"I'll grab some today while I'm out," Susan told her, waving her hand at her daughter. Cara rolled her green eyes to the wood paneled ceiling.

"Out where?" She questioned accusingly. "Out at the bar?" Cara didn't need to look up from the toaster to know that Susan had a sheepish look on her aging face. She didn't respond. "And when is Steve going to get his shit out of my room?"

"Where do you expect him to put his stuff, Care? I don't see you forkin' over the money for a storage unit."

"It's been four months since his mom died. I'm sad about that and all, but he's had months to get one. I don't see why his stuff is still taking up space here." Cara's toast popped up, causing both of the women to jump. Susan took a deep breath and shoved a spoonful of dry cereal into her mouth.

"I'll talk to him," she relented, "but I'm not rushin' him. Hasn't he been through enough?" Cara couldn't help the weighed down look of contempt she gave her mom as she smeared jam on her butterless toast.

"When you're _out_ getting butter don't forget milk. Or eggs, or laundry soap, or sugar, or - "

"What do think? I'm made of money?" Cara scoffed to herself. _If you're made of anything, it isn't money, that's for sure._ Susan reached into the pocket of her sweatshirt and pulled out her trusty pack of leprechaun green Kools, lighting one and taking a drag before saying anything else. "Maybe you should start pulling your weight around here and we wouldn't be short so much stuff, huh?"

"I think that between the cooking and the cleaning and the yard work, I pull my weight around here just fine, _mother_." Susan let out a chortle at her daughter's omission while Cara took a bite of her toast, pretending it was her mother's head.

"Have you seen this place lately? It's a pig sty." Cara shot her mother a hearty laugh in response.

"No thanks to either of you," she clipped. "I work my ass off around here. I don't do anything for one day and it's like Mount Vesuvius erupted in the living room. I'm not a maid, mom. It isn't my job to make sure the place is spotless. I just don't want to have to share the bathroom with roaches." Cara punctuated her rant with a snarling bite of toast. Susan only looked pointedly down at her dry cereal, not responding, puffing on her slender, orange and white cancer-stick. "I have to get to school." Cara dusted the crumbs off her hands and slung her bag on her shoulder.

"Have a good day," her mom said before she could reach the door. Cara just rolled her eyes before wrenching the door open and shambling to the center of her trailer park, where the school bus would pick her and four other miserable looking kids up for school.

Although the school year was new, some things just didn't change. Like the rich kids driving cars that costed more than her life, the pretty girls batting their eyelashes like they were being paid for it, and Boyd standing at the railing waiting for her to get off her morning bus. She smiled when she saw him, glad for something that made her genuinely happy.

"Hey, Curly," he said, grinning. His teeth were just as white and his eyes were just as welcoming as the last time she'd seen him. Which was exactly a week ago at their own little back to school party. If you could really call it that, since it was just the two of them in Boyd's basement splitting a bottle of his parent's white chocolate schnapps.

"Tiny," she responded, shoving his arm affectionately. The nicknames _Curly_ and _Tiny_ had been in use since the two were about 7. When Cara's mane had become such a trademark that it had become a character all it's own, and when Boyd was already towering over most of his peers a solid 4 inches. Their friendship was unlikely. But, a few lonely recess detentions can bring anyone together at that age, really. "How's the 'rents?" Boyd scoffed at her question.

"Going on day four," he told her, leaning against the railing behind him, crossing his thick arms across his chest.

"What are they actually doing in Sacramento?" Cara mimicked Boyd's stance in front of him while adjusting the raggedy bag on her shoulders.

"They never actually disclosed that information specifically," Boyd said, "but something tells me that their prolonged road trip has a little something to do with the Lotus Casino." The blonde nodded in understanding with a sigh. No one who really deserves it ever seems to catch a break.

"At least you get a break from your parents," Cara shrugged, trying to cheer Boyd up. He would never say it, but being left alone by his parent's hurts him more than anything. It tears Cara up inside seeing him so down about anything, let alone about the people who are supposed to take care of him and lift him up, not break his heart.

"I guess," he mumbled, "how about you? What's new at the Rogers-Duncan household?" Cara, instead of answering his positively dumb question - Boyd knew that there was absolutely nothing new going on there, the same old bull shit that's been going on since they've met - grabbed the large boy's arm and directed him into the school. "Ah," he chuckled, "so nothing's new then."

"Besides the new smells I discover whenever Steve is around, no. Nothing to report." The rest of the walk to Cara's locker was silent. The year was new, but that was about it. She would have mostly the same teachers, see mostly the same students, fail mostly the same classes. Same bullshit, different year, if you asked her. Cara got a pencil and a notebook from her bag and put the rest into her locker.

When they got to Boyd's locker, he hesitated before opening it, looking as if he wanted to say something. Cara raised an eyebrow, he sighed in relentment. "Maybe you should have more than just a pencil and some paper for class," he told her carefully. The green-eyed girl rolled her eyes to the tiled ceiling.

"Yeah," she began with a laugh, "and maybe you shouldn't worry so much."

"I'm serious, Cara." Boyd shut his locker, his first period textbook and binder in his large hands. "This isn't junior high anymore. We need this stuff to go somewhere in life. Don't you wanna get out of Beacon Hills?"

" _Of course_ , I do," Cara said, affronted, her arms crossed and her brow low.

"Then maybe you should start taking things a bit more seriously. I'm not sticking around this place after graduation any longer than I have to. And I don't wanna have to leave you here when I do." His words had a finality to them that told Cara their conversation was over, so she huffed and watched as he walked passed her and towards his first class of the day.

Cara's first period was no walk in the park, she decided. It was Biology with Mr. Harris. Who already did not like her from the prior when she had him for her Freshman Physical Science class. He talked too much and only picked on kids who didn't understand what he was teaching. So naturally, her already straining dislike for authority made her words carry a venomous bite and her attitude elude scornful distaste. And the feelings were more than mutual for Mr. Harris, she was sure.

"Ah," the Biology teacher sighed from behind his desk as soon as he saw Cara sit in a desk farthest from the front of the room. "Miss Rogers. How nice to have you in class again this year. What with how well you did last semester." He was just as condescending as Cara remembered last year and she had to grind her teeth to keep from biting back.

"And I'm glad to be back, Mister Harris," she responded with a faux shit-eating grin. "What with how well you taught things last year. Really one-on-one, I'd say." Instead of dignifying her with a retort that would surely lead them into an argument, Mr. Harris turned his eyes back down to his paper with a hum in acknowledgement.

 _Off to a great start, already_ , Cara thought to herself with a groan.

The class carried on the way most do the first day. Talk of the syllabus and what the curriculum is for the year and what to do to pass the class. Cara tried to pay attention, she really did. But as Mister Harris droned on about reviewing last years material for the first week, she faded off into a daydream. She couldn't exactly remember, but it had something to do with banging Harris into the ground with a giant whack-a-mole mallet.

Sometime after Harris started to write things on the board, he asked the classroom a question. And, as per usual, instead of calling on someone who's hand was up, he singled out the only person who didn't know the answer.

"Cara," he said, loud enough to break her from her reverie. She blinked and looked up to see Mr. Harris looking at her with an impatient expression on his pug face.

"Um," she mumbled impishly. "Could you repeat the question?" He sighed.

"I would appreciate it if you paid attention in my class, please, Miss Rogers." Cara nodded, but, under her breath, she mumbled something along the lines of " _asshole_." And despite trying her best to cover it up by clearing her throat, Harris heard, and turned around with blazing eyes. "Could I speak with you out in the hallway, Cara?" Someone in the class ooh'ed, which irritated Cara to her core, as she stood to exit into the hall outside the room. She leaned against the wall while Harris closed the door behind him, and crossed her arms defensively. "Are we really going to start the year out like this? Is this year going to be the same as the last?" Cara shrugged, feigning apathy. "It's up to you, Cara. Honestly, I don't have the energy to fight with you anymore. So, if you want to argue, go to the Principal's office and argue with him." Again, Cara said nothing, only looked down at the floor between them. This just made Harris even more angry. "Alright, Principal's office it is then," he snipped, reaching for the door handle.

"But - " Cara started to argue, her jaw slacked and her brows low.

"You had your chance to apologize and move on. And instead, you stood there like a lump on a log staring at the floor." He shrugged, much like Cara had, feigning apathy. "The Principal can deal with you now. Stay here." Harris went into the room to get a office slip, leaving Cara in the hall, red faced and fuming.

The Principal didn't do anything Harris wouldn't have done. He gave her a write up, four after school detentions, and one in school suspension. A little over the top for simply calling a teacher by his name, Cara thought, but nothing she hasn't dealt with before.

After school, Cara met with Boyd next to the lacrosse field, like they did every day, every year. They liked to walk home together, since they didn't live far and riding the bus after school was a death sentence. Their walk was a bit tense, since they hadn't seen or spoken to each other since Boyd told her to stop being such a lazy bum that morning. But, the silence was comforting for Cara solely because Boyd was by her side. He always had a calming effect on Cara's chaotic mind, whether Boyd himself was calm or not. At the corner with St. Mary's church, Cara and Boyd split ways.

"You know that going down there never does any good," Boyd told her knowingly after she was a few good feet away. Cara shrugged, turning to look at him as she continued walking.

"I guess that makes me insane then," she responded with a resigned smile.

"What?" He asked, loud enough for her to hear, unsure of what exactly she meant by that.

"Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome." Boyd bite the inside of his cheek as he watched her turn back around and walk into the parking lot of the Lucky 7 Bingo Hall.

It was quiet on this Wednesday afternoon, only a few of the really old people and Cara's mom were taking residency at the long cafeteria style tables in front of the caller. Slowly, Cara ambled over to her mother, who had a pink dauber in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.

"Mom," Cara sighed, sitting beside the frizzy redhead. Susan looked up at her daughter, smiling before taking a drag of her sleek menthol cigarette.

"Hey, Sweetie," she responded, white smoke seeping out of her mouth and nose as she spoke. "What're you doin' here?" A number was called and Susan excitedly marked it on one of her eight cards, three away from a bingo.

"I came to get the grocery money." When she said the word _money_ and Susan didn't look up from her cards, Cara knew something was up. "I figured I could go to the store for you. Ya know, pull my weight."

"Oh no, hon," Susan waved her off, pointedly not looking at her daughter's distrustful face. "I can go to the store as soon as I'm finished up here." Cara laid a heavy hand on her mother's arm.

"I can do it, mom," she insisted with a faux half smile. "I mean, you work so hard." Susan slowly turned her head to see Cara's eyes. Cold and calculating and clever. Cara had her trapped.

"I meant that I'll go to the store as soon as I'm finished here because I'm going to use the money that I win to buy everything we need." Susan said it with conviction and certainty, the kind of blind stupidity that aggravated Cara more than anything.

"Why can't I just go now? I mean, you do still have some of the grocery money right?" Susan nodded noncommittally with a half shrug.

"I have some," she nodded.

"Then just give me what you have, I can pick up stuff for dinner." Cara was growing impatient waiting to catch her mother in a lie. These games were becoming very tiring for her.

"I meant none," Susan said finally, wincing. "I have none of it." Although this counted as a win for Cara, it was bittersweet. Because her mother was still irresponsible and that would never change no matter how many times Cara tallied a point for herself.

"So, what you're telling me is that you spent _all_ the grocery money on these _eight_ bingo cards." Susan looked back down at her cards, the odds not being in her favor despite having the numbers. Her pink marks were scattered and had no hope of creating any type of row or pattern any time soon, and even if she did. The payout wouldn't be as good as if the hall was packed like on Friday and Saturday nights. Cara took Susan's silence as omission enough. "Unbelievable, mom. Really."

"I don't see what the fuss is about," Susan shrugged. "I'll win."

"It's not about whether you win or lose, mom." Cara stood from the table to look disappointedly down at her mother. "It's the fact that you had to do one thing. _One thing_. And you couldn't even do that without screwing it up. So, now I have to take money out of my savings _again_ , and go buy something for dinner."

"I'll pay you back, Care," Susan called as the petite girl turned to walk away. "Don't I always pay you back?"

"No, mom," Cara retorted without turning around, "not always."

The dinner that Cara had decided to make with the ten bucks she was willing to fork over for the ingredients was a modest one: breakfast. $3 for the box mix, $4 for the one pound of bacon, and $2 for milk. She broke pretty evenly, with only 17 cents to spare. It would only take her about seven or eight minutes to cook, she figured as she mixed the batter and laid the limp strips of bacon in the hot skillet. After skipping the slop that was for lunch at school, she had been feeling rather peckish, and the sound of the meat sizzling in the buttery pan made her stomach ache.

Obviously smelling food cooking like a bloodhound, Steve shambled his way into the kitchen from his and Susan's room, sniffing inconspicuously.

"What're you cookin'?" he asked her, limping to take a seat at the table across the kitchen from where Cara stood. She eyed him with disdain.

"Food," she answered, clipped. She did her best to be civil with the man, for her mother's sake, but he had a good way of grating down on her nerves.

"Breakfast?" he questioned with an accusatory tone. Steve sat up as far as he could to peer into the pans Cara had on the stove top. "For dinner?"

"Yes," she huffed, looking back to the bacon sizzling and the pancakes bubbling. Steve made a noise of disapproval. "What? Is that not what you wanted?"

"It's not what I would have made," he said with a shrug, "that's all." Cara kept her back to the man, her nose scrunching and her fist gripping the spatula so hard her knuckles turned white. It took everything in her not to turn around and swat him with it like a fly.

"Well, next time you can go to the store and buy the ingredients with your money," she told him sharply, snarling. Steve cleared his throat awkwardly. It was common knowledge that Steve did not, under any circumstances, leave the house. He was handicapped physically by a paralyzed leg, and mentally by his mother's recent horrific death. She had been mutilated by a runaway parade float. Granted, it was all very sad. Cara could admit that. But, even before his mother's unexpected death, Steve was a deadbeat who used his military injury as a crutch to get out of being apart of the real world.

"It's just," he started quietly from the table, "we have that all the time. A little variety never hurt anyone."

"Poor people don't get the luxury of having options," Cara replied cynically. "Pancakes and bacon are cheap and easy, so," she left the sentence at that and flipped the pancake in the pan over, happy with the perfect golden brown color left on the other side.

After all the batter was used up and all the bacon strips were crispy and laying on a paper towel to drain the grease, the lights above the blonde began to flicker. She looked up to the yellowing ceiling suspiciously, and then, as if sensing her heart sinking, the lights went out. The hum of the fridge cut out, the old television displaying a crime drama to the empty living room crackled into blankness, and the washer stopped mid-cycle. The trailer was so silent, you could have heard the angry blood echoing in the blonde's ears. Cara growled.

"I thought you handled the electric bill last week," she said loudly, on the border line of a yell and with an argumentative tone. In the dark, Cara could see Steve shrug.

"Maybe it hasn't gone through yet," he murmured, looking at the light above his head with a dumb look on his face.

"What the hell do you mean it hasn't gone through yet? This isn't 1984, Steven. These things take less than a day to _go through_ ," she put air quotes around the phrase 'go through.'

"I remember going to the office and leaving the check there, so," he shrugged, "if it hasn't been paid, it's their fault." Cara laid heavy eyes on her step-father, the malice in her gaze nearly palpable in the stuffy trailer.

" _You_ went to the office?" She inquired with a belligerent intent behind her words. " _You_ left the house? Are you sure about that, _Steven_?" Cara spat his name like it left a nasty taste on her tongue. He visibly winced.

"I-I mean, _I_ didn't go to the office," he recovered hastily.

"Who did?"

"Your mother," he was wincing again, like he smelt something terrible, "this morning. After you left for school." Cara let out a sharp chuckle that did not sound very humorous, and was rather sarcastic.

"Unbelievable," she muttered underneath a huff. If Cara was being honest, she half expected this to happen when she handed the cash over a week ago to pay the bill. She was used to things like this happening by now. But it still made her fists clench every time. "Did you guys just forget about it?" Judging by the way Steve's eyes shifted nervously, she knew he was about to tell her a lie.

"Yeah, with how busy me and your mom have been lately, it just escaped our minds." Something told her that they blew the cash Cara gave them from her savings on cigarettes, booze, and lottery tickets and had to wait for Steve's puny disability check to arrive this morning - the last Wednesday of every month, like clock work - to pay it at the very possible last second.

"Right," Cara mumbled with a resigned sigh. Arguing would do little to help or change anything. It was a hard pill to swallow, but it was a reality that Cara had been disillusioned to for quite some time now. Rain pelted into the roof above their heads, the stillness of the space around them making the weather outside seem louder and more intense than it was a few moments ago. The teenager reached into her back pocket, no longer hungry, and pulled her cell phone into view. "Foods on the counter," she told her step-father while going into her room to retrieve some shoes and a windbreaker, typing her best- and only- friend's house number forlornly.

The dial tone sounded for a while before playing Boyd's voicemail message to her. Shrugging to herself, she tied the laces of her shoes, zipped up her jacket, and dialed Boyd's number again. She vaguely acknowledged Steve with a repulsed look as he packed too much food into his mouth and waved goodbye to her from the dining table. Cara pulled the front door open to walk out onto her front porch and wait under the cover of the awning for a moment, listening to the dial tone ring once more, frowning subconsciously. _Why isn't he answering?_ She wondered as she stepped off her porch and into the downpour. The drops were large and heavy and hurdling to earth with such purpose that the initial contact made Cara jump as she strolled down her walkway and onto the sidewalk.

 _"I can't get to the phone. You know what to do." **Beep.**_

"Um, it's Cara. Why aren't you answering? I know you're home. Call me back when you're done shitting."

She was positive that Boyd would get her messages and call her back before she reached his house, so she continued the 30 minute route to her best friend's house that was ingrained into her brain by now. The sky was dull and dark and by the looks of the streets, everyone was inside, enjoying the dry warmth. She sighed, watching her feet carry themselves one in front of the other.

* * *

 **This is a re-write of a story that was posted on my previous account, which you can find in my bio. I really didn't want to leave this story hanging, but I did _not_ want to touch it with a ten foot poll until it was re-written, until I was proud of it again. So, that's what I'm doing. Minor details will be changed, but major plot lines will remain the same. I hope everyone understands that I wrote this story when I was 15, so it was a sore in my side more than a story, really. Look for more chapters every couple weeks, I'm going to try to stick to Fridays. **

**Thanks to the readers I've been able to keep and thank you to any new ones I gain in the process.**


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